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Retired Computer Hobbyist

I am recently retired and now have time to use my computers recreationally.

I have three computers that I actively use; a recently purchased Toshiba laptop that dual boots Windows XP (Home) and Ubuntu Dapper Drake (desktop only), a five year old Dell desktop that was recently upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows XP Professional, and a three year old Dit desktop that runs Ubuntu Dapper Drake (Lamp server and Gnome desktop in one install).

The three computers are on a home network, the desktop running Linux is connected to the router by hardwire only, whereas the dual booting laptop and Windows desktop both have hard-wire and wi-fi lan connections.

Lately my emphasis has been on comfort, security and portability.

I am at home a lot and I want to be able to sit in my easy chair and surf the internet using a wireless mouse and keyboard and watch the output on my high definition television. I am gradually achieving this with the old Dell desktop running Windows XP Pro.

I use my relatively new Toshiba laptop for most of my pseudo-serious computing. It has my most valuable files, including personal records and internet passwords. I am trying to make sure that if is stolen, the information in it is useless.

The Dit desktop running Linux acts as a server. It runs Samba, MySQL and Apache as well as others. So far it only provides services to the computers on my home network but my goal is to make it accessible from the web, at least to my friends and me (when I am away from home).

I use a 1GB thumb drive. With it I'm trying to achieve portability for my most used applications and at the same time protect my data. None of my computers will reveal anything meaningful unless the thumb drive is plugged into it and the thumb drive is useless by itself. My short range goal is to be able to put temporary copies of sensitive files onto the thumb drive and still be sure those files will not be comprimised if I lose the thumb drive or have it stolen.

Any helpful suggestions will be greatly appreciated. If my experiences can be of any help to you, please ask.

The package said "Requires Windows 95 or better" but when I tried to install it on my Linux box - it failed.